


Wants and Needs

by slightlyraspberry



Category: The West Wing
Genre: :'))), Bisexual Donna Moss, Day At The Beach, Episode: s05e20 No Exit, F/F, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Homoerotic Car Scenes, Pining, must a beach scene be necessary? is it not enough to see c.j. in a bikini?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyraspberry/pseuds/slightlyraspberry
Summary: She doesn’t want a date with C.J., anyway. That would be ridiculous. She just wants to get to know her, maybe get coffee for real instead of standing in line next to her in the mornings. Maybe even go to the beach together. That’s not a date, that’s just… becoming better friends.
Relationships: C. J. Cregg/Donna Moss
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Wants and Needs

**Author's Note:**

> Starts at an unspecified time in s5 and finishes w/ a No Exit au. Everything homoerotic I've ever experienced has happened in a car so there's a lot of that here.

Donna’s not sure what starts it. Well, she’s a little sure, but not sure enough to make a declaration, you know? She wouldn’t go right out and say “this is why I can’t stop thinking about C.J. Cregg.” 

Because she can’t. Stop thinking about her, that is. C.J. 

Donna knows C.J. well, is friends with her, but hasn’t ever wanted more information than she was given. She prides herself on being an antidote to the press piranhas, letting C.J. decide what information she shares about her life with Donna. Donna thinks she knows about where she stands in the hierarchy of C.J.’s West Wing confidantes—she’s behind Carol and Toby, but about on par with Josh. Anything that gets to Josh generally goes through her first, after all. She’s pretty happy with this. There are worse places to be on C.J. Cregg’s ladder.

Lately, though. Lately, Donna has been wondering all sorts of things about C.J.’s life. She wants to know what C.J. does in her free time, what CD she plays in the car on her way home, all sorts of things she’s never really known and never cared to. 

Mostly, she wants to know what new perfume C.J.’s started wearing. 

She thinks _that’s_ what started all this. C.J. had swept into Josh’s office, as she was wont to do, and Donna had caught a whiff of something as she passed. The scent was barely there—she almost leaned after C.J. to catch it, trying to discern what it was. It was light and fresh, she thought, a relief from the heavy bergamot that Ryan had been trailing around lately.

But she couldn’t quite catch it. The citrusy smell was strangely enticing, begging her to get closer to C.J. and figure out what exactly she was smelling.

She wondered where C.J. had bought it. For the rest of that day, all she could think about was C.J. in some swanky little shop with “apothecary” in the name, sampling scent after scent until she landed on that one. Trying to digest reports for Josh only led Donna’s mind into imagining the way the smell of the perfume would fill C.J.’s car as she went home, how it would wash down the drain before she went to bed.

Anyway. She’s pretty sure the perfume is why she can’t get C.J. off of her mind. But what _really_ sent her over the edge was the photo. The photo, you know, the one that Sexy Ben for some reason had in his wallet, the one of C.J. in a bikini, stretched out on some beach next to Sexy Ben himself. Donna’s always dated more men than women—but C.J. is one of those women who makes her think twice about that decision, like Jeanine in high school or Melissa from the campus coffee shop or Ellen two years ago. 

The point is, Donna has dated women before, but she’s never wanted to date _C.J._ , and that makes all the difference. She’s not even sure that she wants to date C.J., or just, you know, see what it takes to get her to take a day on the beach.

She thought her weird little infatuation would last a day, maybe a couple. It’s happened before—Donna’s always had a weird way of wanting to be friends with someone, obsessing over them a little bit until she can get closer—but it always fades within a week as she realizes that they’re just a person like her.

This thing with C.J., though, is going on into its second week, and Donna thinks Carol knows. The first time she even hints at it is when she asks Carol if she knew what perfume C.J. was wearing. She and Carol both appreciate a good signature scent, but Carol had no idea what C.J.’s was. She didn’t seem to suspect anything then, at any rate. The next morning, Donna just goes ahead and puts on her normal, basic Chanel No. 5 and tries not to think about C.J. rubbing perfume onto her chest. 

Carol gave her a little bit of a weird look when she asked for the number of C.J.’s hairdresser, but Donna justifies it by saying that the woman who does her color moved (only to a new apartment building, but Carol doesn’t need to know that) and C.J.’s roots have never once shown, could she just get the recommendation? And so Donna books an appointment for the third Saturday of the month, when she knows C.J. has a standing date with some hairstylist named Kathy because it’s the day, generally, when every person in the White House gets the fewest number of buzzes on their pager. It’s a little creepy, she admits, but she _does_ runs into C.J. and gets another whiff of citrus while they make small talk, so she thinks it’s worth it.

The ten extra minutes on her commute are worth it, too. Donna orders a medium vanilla latte with soy milk every single morning, but she stops doing it at the Starbucks five minutes from her apartment and starts doing it at the local coffee shop where C.J. gets her black coffee every morning. She runs into C.J. about half the time. Oddly enough, Donna is starting to get to know C.J. better, just from talking in the line. She knows C.J. can’t decide whether to take Ben’s calls or not, wants her father to move to D.C., is thinking about getting a dog but doesn’t think she has the time. 

It’s good C.J. is a routine person, Donna thinks during one of their conversations. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to run into her nearly as much. 

Somehow, despite all this, nobody really notices the compartment C.J. has started occupying in Donna’s mind. Carol definitely begins to suspect something, though, when Donna asks if they could start inviting C.J. to the weekly assistant happy hour.

“I don’t know that she’d want to come. It’s just us assistants,” Carol says doubtfully over the phone. “It’s not really her scene.”

“I just thought… you know, because C.J. works so hard, and she’s one of the only female staffers,” Donna says, “that we might ask if she wants to get out of the old boys club and, you know, have some girl time. We could invite Angela too, come to think of it.”

Donna thinks she might be able to hear Carol thinking about it through the phone wire.

“Well, I guess I’ll ask her,” she says. “No promises.”

Donna grins. Her stupid brain immediately launches itself onto a path of C.J.’s potential drink orders. She visualizes them on rickety bar stools, sipping dry martinis while the rest of the girls chatter around them. 

“Great, thanks!” she tells Carol, and nearly hangs up.

“Why do you have so many questions about C.J. these days anyways, Donna?” Carol asks.

“Oh, you know me. I’m always scouting out potential wives for Josh.” Donna actually hangs up, then. It isn’t really fair to Carol, she thinks. It’s a valid question. Why does she have so many questions about C.J.? She chalks it up to professional interest. C.J. is successful. Donna wants to be successful. So do as C.J. does and maybe she’ll get there. Sure. That’s it. Donna puts it out of her mind as best she can and returns to the files she has to compress into a memo by noon.

The phone rings almost as soon as she starts. 

“Josh Lyman’s office,” Donna says.

“She said yes.” It’s Carol.

“Wow, that was fast.”

“She must be really feeling tired this week. She’s asking Angela Blake, too.”

“Ok, well, good. Gotta go.” Donna hangs up again before Carol can start asking questions. 

“C.J.’s coming to drinks tomorrow,” she says conversationally to Ryan. 

He smirks at her, the little bastard. “Can I come too? I wanna see C.J. after hours.”

“Official assistants only,” Donna says. “Sorry, no interns.”

Ryan’s smirk stays there. He always looks crafty, Donna thinks. Always plotting something. It would be unnerving if she didn’t know it was mostly an act.

“I saw the way you looked when Carol called. Almost like you just got a date. You wanna go on a date with C.J., Donna?”

The snarky little twerp. Of course he noticed. Maybe the crafty thing isn’t an act.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ryan,” Donna says, brushing it off as a joke. Thank God she doesn’t blush easily. “Go. Take care of these.” She passes off a stack of files containing God knows what, shooing him away. He winks at her and turns on his heel, swaggering with all the grace of a twelve-year-old toward the corner he works in.

She doesn’t want a date with C.J., anyway. That would be ridiculous. She just wants to get to know her, maybe get coffee for real instead of standing in line next to her in the mornings. Maybe even go to the beach together. That’s not a date, that’s just… becoming better friends.

“Donna!” she hears Josh shout from his office. That’s enough of _that_ train of thought, anyway.

“Coming,” she yells over her shoulder. Sometimes the pace of this place is a lifesaver.

-

C.J. really has no idea why she said yes. It’s not as if she has the time to go out with Angela and the assistants. Really, she should be staying to make sure everything that needs to be finished before the weekend gets finished and to clean up any last-minute leaks. 

But really, doesn’t she deserve a break? 

That’s what she tells herself as she shrugs on her coat. She repeats it as she locks her office door, and again as she shifts gears. Once she gets to the assistants’ bar of choice, though, she’s fully justified a night off to herself. 

She thinks she’s the last one there. Ginger and Bonnie are there already, Nancy, Margaret, Rina—C.J. half expects to see Debbie Fiderer knocking back a shot. Debbie’s not here, though, so C.J. takes the empty seat next to Angela. They’re all crammed into a semicircular booth, chatting and laughing and sipping cocktails. A roar goes up when she arrives.

“C.J.! I thought you’d never leave the office,” says Ginger.

“We’re glad you’re here, though,” Bonnie says. “Here, get a drink.”

“Well, thanks, girls!” C.J. says, pleasantly surprised. She’s flattered. She’d like to think she treats the assistants well—that all of them do—but it’s nice to know she’s actually wanted here. “If I’d known I’d get such a warm reception I would’ve gotten an invite to this a lot sooner.”

Angela grins. “I know, right? Almost makes me wish this job was permanent.”

C.J. chuckles. The chatter picks back up. No one’s still dressed for work except her, so she takes off her suit jacket and places it beside her. A beer she doesn’t remember ordering has appeared on the table, so she sips at it and tunes out the noise for just a few seconds while she regroups. 

When she comes back down to Earth, the girls are inexplicably teasing Rina about Toby. 

“Please,” she says, laughing, “the poor man can’t even hire a new deputy. You think he can handle dating me?”

“Oh, you can do better than Toby, Rina,” C.J. chimes in. “Don’t sell yourself short, now.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Rina says, sipping from her cosmo. “Believe me.” She looks pointedly at some handsome stranger sitting at the bar. He doesn’t even try to pretend he’s not staring at her, just motions to the bartender. Within a minute, Rina has a full glass sitting in front of her.

Even if he wanted to, C.J. thinks, Toby never stood a chance. 

“Hey, mind if I sit?”

C.J. looks up. Donna stands at the edge of the booth, pointing at the little sliver of seat that C.J.’s suit jacket is currently occupying. She quickly moves it onto her lap and scoots as far in as she can, inadvertently pressing herself against Angela’s side.

“Yeah, of course,” she replies. Donna pushes C.J.’s beer over to make room for her martini, and their thighs squish together as she slides onto the bench. 

Donna. How could she not have noticed she was missing? Besides Carol, Donna was the most prominent of the assistants in C.J.’s day-to-day. She relied on her to convey Josh’s mad schemes, to do far more than what was required of her to help keep things running. Maybe C.J.’s just gotten so used to seeing Donna with Josh that she forgot they weren’t technically a package deal.

Donna’s still dressed for work, too, though, which means she’d probably been bogged down doing Josh’s dirty work for at least the past hour.

“The boss got you chained to your desk?” Carol asks Donna.

“When am I not?” Donna says. She smooths back some strands of hair from her face and pushes them behind her ear, smooths down her clothes, taps on the table, emanating nervous energy left over from the office. C.J. knows it well. It’s the energy that comes from having more to do, from knowing what you’ve left for yourself in the morning, and it’s the energy that C.J. is only exempt from right now because of her beer.

It is a Friday, though. Donna really should relax.

Donna smiles at C.J., that nervous little smile she has when she’s not sure if she should be happy about something. “Hi, C.J. Glad you could make it.”

“Donna was really pushing to invite you two,” Carol says to C.J. and Angela.

“I just like to mix things up!” Donna says, laughing a bit. She’s wearing a light pink lipstick that somehow catches the dim light. “It’s good to get new faces around, I think.

“Plus, I thought you guys might want a break from the old boys club that occupies the Oval every day.”

“Says the woman who stays four hours late every day just to flirt with her boss,” Carol jabs.

When did they all get to this point, C.J. wonders? The point where they openly talk about this thing that’s been playing out with Donna and Josh for the past 7 odd years?

She can’t believe Donna’s not blushing when she responds. “It’s not flirting, Carol. It’s vigorous and antagonistic bickering.”

“Right,” C.J. says. “You expect us to believe there’s any animosity there?”

Donna looks agitated. “Well, it’s not… it’s not like _that_ , at any rate. We’re just friends.”

And it’s weird. C.J. actually believes her. She’s spent so much time just taking it for granted that Donna’s in love with Josh, Josh is in love with Donna, that she hasn’t really stopped to consider how either of them actually felt about it. But right here, right now, she believes that Donna isn’t in love with Josh at all. Maybe it’s the utter lack of pink in her cheeks, maybe it’s her squeamish expression, but C.J. somehow finds herself wondering how she could have ever thought Donna loved him.

Carol just harrumphs. “Call it what you want, honey. You can’t escape Cupid’s arrow.”

C.J. laughs with the rest of them, but is really focused on the way Donna has tensed up next to her. 

But the conversation moves on, and Donna relaxes eventually. It’s mostly inane gossip, which C.J. usually has little patience for, but tonight she lets herself enjoy the speculation about who’s seeing who in the office and genially fends off questions about Ben. She finishes her drink and gets a glass of water—not that she has anywhere to be tomorrow, but she doesn’t really feel like doing anything more than relaxing a little tonight. 

The music in the bar is a little too loud. Not unpleasantly so, but enough that C.J. has to raise her voice a little to be heard. She and Donna try to speak over it at the same time, both offering some witty comeback to something Bonnie said, but stop short in their tracks, looking at each other.

“Sorry, I—”

“No, go ahead, I was—”

They stop again, still staring.

C.J. just laughs. “What were you gonna say, Donna?”

Donna breaks eye contact and looks back at the group. “I was just thinking that it wouldn’t be the first time Will came where he wasn’t wanted.”

Bonnie giggles. “And how would you know that?”

“Easy. I heard it from Ginger.”

“Don’t you make up lies about me, Donna, I have enough dirt to ruin your life in a couple hours,” says Ginger indignantly.

“We all do,” says Donna. “That’s what makes our friendship so good.”

Donna finishes off the last of her second drink. C.J., for reasons unknown, still hasn’t stopped looking at her. She realizes that she rarely sees Donna like this, untethered from the obligations of the White House. It’s weird to see her outside of the office. It’s like C.J. forgot that Donna existed outside of work at all. But here, C.J. notices the way her lipstick comes off against her glass and the easy banter she has with the rest of the assistants, the way she exists as a full person rather than just an appendage of Josh. 

Not that C.J. ever thought Donna was just an appendage. It’s just—she seems so wholly different under the dim lights that C.J. wonders if she’s ever known Donna as well as she thought she did. 

C.J. checks her watch. If she’s starting to wonder this much about her co-worker’s personal life, it’s probably time to leave and get some rest. When the conversation pauses a moment, C.J. makes an excuse about how she really should be getting home. 

“Your home or Ben’s?” Carol asks. Carol’s cheeky on the best of days, but the drinks are certainly moving her along quickly.

“My home, Carol, I don’t make a habit of bothering my beaus while they’re on business trips.” C.J. nudges Donna so that she can get out of the booth. Donna complies and stands up, but starts to take her wallet out. 

“Sorry, guys. I think it’s time for me to leave, too.”

“You just got here, Donna, stay for another round!”

“I really can’t,” Donna says remorsefully. “I have a—a thing Josh is making me do early tomorrow. Some breakfast, I don’t know.” She takes out a twenty and puts it on the table. “Come on, C.J., we hard workers really ought to get going.”

So C.J. follows Donna out of the bar and heads for her car, not realizing that Donna is walking in the opposite direction of the nearest cab pickup until she gets to her car and Donna is still beside her.

“Can I get a ride?” she says.

-

This might be the most catastrophically terrible idea Donna’s ever had. Weird infatuation aside, it’s not a good idea to get in a car with one’s boss after two unusually strong drinks (not that C.J.’s technically her boss, she reasons, but still). Donna’s not drunk, per se, but she’s not sober either, and she thinks that’s why she followed C.J. to her little sedan instead of getting a cab like she usually would. And asks for a ride.

“I just don’t really have the energy to put up with some rando driving me home tonight.”

C.J. just kind of looks at her. Her eyes are so big, so blue, that Donna thinks she might fall over from the intensity of them. She’s a little worried C.J. might say no when she opens her mouth.

Instead, C.J. smiles. “Sure, Donna.” She opens the passenger door for Donna before crossing to the other side. When she starts the car, a classic rock station starts playing quietly. Donna’s not sure what music she expected C.J. to play in the car, but it somehow fits perfectly.

Donna pretends she’s looking out the driver’s side window. She’s not, though. She’s looking at C.J. Here in C.J.’s car, with her head lying against the headrest, Donna can smell C.J.’s perfume at full volume. Well, whatever full volume for noses is. 

“It’s a left here, right?” C.J. asks.

Donna takes her eyes off C.J. and looks at the street sign. “Yeah,” she says. “Then second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”

“Okay, Tinkerbell,” C.J. chuckles. “But I’m gonna need real directions from here on out. Believe it or not, I don’t actually have every staffers’ address memorized so I can watch for scandals.”

Donna laughs at that. “And here I thought C.J. Cregg had the reach of the F.B.I. Oh, take the second exit on this traffic circle.”

C.J. drives like she does everything else, Donna notices. She’s measured, confident—but just a little on edge, waiting for something to go wrong. She watches for wayward cars in the same way she listens for stray stories in the news cycle that are itching to throw her off. Donna continues giving C.J. directions for the fifteen or so minutes it takes to get to her building, sneaking looks at her in between squinting at poorly-lit signs. 

When C.J. parks, Donna sits up. She doesn’t get out, though, just stares through the windshield at what stars she can see.

“C.J., can I ask you a question?”

“I don’t see why not, Tink.”

God, she’s got a nickname from C.J. now. This must be heaven on Earth.

“Where’d you get that perfume?”

C.J. looks—well, not taken aback, exactly, but surprised.

“It was a gift. From Ben. Why do you ask?”

Donna shrugs. “I like it. I thought I might like to buy it.” _If only that’s all if was,_ she thinks. _If only._

“Well, I can ask him where he got it,” C.J. says.

“Mhmm.” Donna turns her head and makes eye contact with C.J. And she’s so close, so unbearably close to her, only a few feet away. The air between them feels like an impenetrable wall, or like an electric fence, threatening and heady without substance. Donna knows this is a bad idea, she knows it in the same way she knows the alphabet, and yet—

“Could I—” she starts softly, taking C.J.’s hand off of the gearshift. She doesn’t wait for an answer as she brings C.J.’s wrist up to her nose, never breaking her gaze. Donna inhales, her lips almost touching C.J.’s inner arm as she takes in the scent. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, with just a hint of citrus. C.J.’s eyes dart away after a moment, looking at the dashboard, the wheel, anything that’s not Donna. Donna can almost feel C.J.’s pulse speeding up under her fingers. It can’t be more than a second before Donna drops her wrist, embarrassed by her impulsiveness.

“Sorry, I—I should go.”

C.J. looks at her again. Donna can’t tell what she’s thinking—goddamn press secretaries, so good at hiding their emotions. So she just turns and opens the door, stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of her building.

“Um. Thanks for the ride,” she says, stilted. “And for—coming to drinks.” She starts to close the door behind her, but C.J. starts to say something and then stops. Donna turns back and looks at her, her mouth open in speech, her eyes wide as ever.

“Donna,” C.J. says seriously. “I’ll ask him where he got it.” Donna nods and closes the door, rushing up the stairs and into the building. She hears C.J.’s engine start only after she’s turned on the lights in her apartment, though, and realizes that C.J. waited to make sure she got home safely.

-

C.J. starts waiting for Donna in the mornings. She never had time to stop at the coffee shop before, but now she finds herself making her way through the line with Donna every day. She finds it eerily similar to the way she used to wait for Danny at the Starbucks on his corner. Donna’s more interesting than Danny ever was, though. He knew exactly what he wanted out of life, which is what C.J. liked about him, but what she likes about Donna is her belief in the endless possibilities that await her once Bartlet’s term ends. Donna doesn’t know what she’ll do after Bartlet—but C.J. learns that she won’t be following Josh to the next job and that she wants to do any number of new and interesting things. Donna talks about finishing her degree, about going to business school, about starting a family and filing for Josh on the weekends, about a thousand different paths she might take.

It’s uncanny. The more she talks to Donna, the more time she wants to spend with her.

They find excuses to see each other during the day, dropping off reports in person that could probably have been walked across the bullpen by Ryan or any old intern. Josh starts making comments about C.J. stealing his assistant, and why don’t they just trade? C.J. replies that he’d probably keel over in about two minutes without Donna, and that she’s happy to send over Carol if he needs any extra help. She can manage on her own, she assures him. 

They spend so many moments together at work that it just makes sense for them to walk out of the building together when they can. C.J.’s parking spot is so far from Donna’s that they just start carpooling—Donna’s apartment isn’t that far from C.J.’s house anyways, and it makes their daily coffee trips that much easier. They get dinner once in a while, go to chick flicks that Toby and Josh refuse to see with them.

It’s not noticeable, at first. It’s just convenience, C.J. tells herself. But suddenly it’s been a month since they started doing this, this synchronized routine thing, and she realizes Donna is her best friend.

C.J.’s never been one for close female friends, really. She’s never had the time nor the career for it. When she thinks about it, Donna might be the closest girlfriend she’s ever had. It’s a little unsettling to her mind, one that’s equipped to work around the entitled men that always surround her, but she figures it’s better to enjoy their friendship rather than question it.

Toby notices the shift, eventually. “Should I be expecting a wedding announcement anytime soon?” he asks one day as Donna exits C.J.’s office. He’s arch, like he always is, and disinterested as ever. 

C.J. just looks at him, unimpressed. He looks up from the file he’s reading and, seeing her expression, shrugs. “I’m just saying. You two spend a lot of time together for her not even being _your_ assistant.”

“It’s called having friends, Toby. You might know what it’s like if you bothered to try,” she snips.

Toby just shrugs again. “Whatever,” he says, raising his eyebrows dismissively. He folds the file shut and walks out of her office. C.J. sits in the chair behind her desk and sighs. Her eyes widen as she realizes exactly what Toby took with him.

“Toby? Toby!” she calls after him, darting up and leaning out the door. He keeps walking. “Toby, are those the OMB projections? Toby!”

She complains about his utter disregard for important files that she “needs, Donna, _needs_ for the afternoon briefing” in the mess that day. It’s one of the few days that they’re able to share a meal, both munching on salads and commiserating about their various workloads. C.J.’s shoulders are tense as she hunches over the table, stabbing at the bowl with a vengeance.

“I mean, they do this all the time. Taking the information I need, withholding information I need, basically doing everything but let me have the information I need!” she says.

“I know, C.J.,” Donna says. “Let it out. They’re just doing their jobs, though.” Her hair is down today. It’s gotten blonder since C.J. started running into her at the salon. She’s not sure why she notices.

“Yeah,” C.J. says, sighing. “I know.” She gives the salad a reprieve from her weaponized cutlery and sits back in her chair. “It’s just one of those days, it would seem.”

Donna takes a bite of her own salad. “Hey,” she says, covering her full mouth. “Are you free on Sunday?”

“Free as I’ll ever be, which is to say, not really.”

“It’s just that—” Donna swallows— “I was gonna go up to Rehoboth with my friend Susan to celebrate the solstice, but she canceled and I still want to go but I don’t want to go alone.”

“So you’re asking me if I can spare a day to—go to the beach? With you?” C.J. says. It’s not the most ludicrous idea she’s ever heard. She keeps talking about how badly she needs to see some sun, and apparently Donna’s noticed. 

‘Well, yeah. I’m leaving Sunday morning, home Sunday evening, barring any national crises. We’ll barely be gone,” Donna says. “Besides, you’re always talking about how much you need to see the sun.” She smiles at C.J. conspiratorially then, like C.J.’s love for Vitamin D is a secret only the two of them share.

C.J. takes another bite and considers all of the things she was planning for the weekend. Admittedly, there were fewer than usual.

“Plus,” says Donna, “I happen to know that they employ some very handsome lifeguards.”

“I’ll think about it. Can I give you a strong, resounding ‘maybe?’” C.J. says apologetically. 

Donna nods. “Bus leaves at six A.M. Sunday. Be there or don’t.” She looks at her watch and her eyes widen. Shoving in the last few bites of her meal, Donna stands and makes hurried apologies to C.J. as she leaves. C.J. stands up not long after. She has a lot of work to do if she wants to take a day off anytime soon.

-

It’s 6:07, and Donna thinks maybe she’s been incredibly stupid. She can’t help it, when she’s around C.J. Stupid things just slip out constantly. She doesn’t know how she’s been holding conversations with C.J. at all, honestly—the woman is whip-smart and basically talks for a living, whereas Donna can barely handle one reporter, let alone 50.

But it’s 6:08 now, and Donna thinks that it was probably-maybe-definitely stupid of her to invite C.J. along to the beach. It’s a three-hour drive there and back, and she’s not sure if C.J. has the time or even the desire to make that drive just for a few hours of sun. If C.J.’s not here by 6:15, Donna thinks, she’ll drive up to Delaware as fast as she possibly can and then have sex with the hottest stranger she can pick up when she returns home.

That’s the other problem. She thought spending more time with C.J. would make her infatuation go away. Instead, all it’s done is make her realize she would spend every minute of the day with C.J. if she could. Donna’s been going on casual dates to keep her mind off of it, but nothing seems to stick more than a few weeks. No one compares to C.J.’s sharp wit, her barely hidden compassion. All of the dates in the world couldn’t distract her from C.J.’s weirdly attractive competence.

And now that she considers why, exactly, she needs distracting, Donna _knows_ that this was a monumentally stupid idea. She gets in her car and sits in it, waiting just a few more minutes in case C.J. shows up. She should have known she wouldn’t, she thinks when she starts the car at 6:14, she’s far too busy.

But as she starts to move away from the curb, she sees C.J.’s sedan in her sideview mirror. Grinning, she stops moving and watches C.J. park a few cars behind her. Without waiting for an invitation, C.J. walks up to the passenger side and folds all five feet, eleven inches of herself into the car.

“You made it!”

“I did indeed, Donnatella. I decided I deserved a day off.” Donna notes to herself that this is probably the third or fourth time C.J.s excused time off for her.

“You do deserve it, C.J. We both do,” Donna says as she pulls out. “Besides, now you’ll be tan and glowing for the Correspondent’s Dinner.” C.J. laughs. Donna loves making C.J. laugh. 

It’s early, even for them, so they stop to grab coffee and some muffins at their coffee shop. C.J. offers to take over driving somewhere around the Maryland-Delaware border, but Donna shakes her head and claims she knows a shortcut. She doesn’t, but she’d rather have to focus on driving than get caught looking at C.J. Whatever. She’ll just speed.

They arrive at the beach around 9. The sun’s out, and it’s already starting to get hot. There’s a breeze from the sea, though, bringing a bit of relief they don’t often get in D.C. All in all, it’s a perfect beach day. 

“It’s a perfect beach day,” C.J. says, looking out on the ocean. “Oh, Donna, I can’t tell you how much I need this.” She’s smiling out at the horizon from under her big, floppy-brimmed sun hat, flowy cover-up blowing around her legs. Donna’s never seen her this relaxed. She looks like she could belong in some painting of a busy beach, a spot of calm among the colorful umbrellas and screaming seagulls.

C.J.’s pager beeps, and the moment’s gone. She frowns as she looks at the name. 

“Sorry, gotta take this.” She flips open her cell phone, dials, and starts talking rapidly into it, all in the span of about three seconds.

Donna patiently sets up the umbrella she brought and rolls out their towels and applies sunscreen while she waits for C.J. to get off the phone. She can hear C.J.’s voice getting steadily louder even as she walks away and decides to just lay out on her towel, closing her eyes behind her sunglasses as she tries to listen to what C.J.’s saying.

“I’m done talking with you about this. If it’s a matter of national security, beep me. If it’s anything less than that, tell them today’s a Sunday and my day off besides and I won’t be bothered,” Donna hears her say. She opens her eyes and sees C.J. snap the phone shut. C.J. smiles tightly at her. 

“Reporters really think they can just hound you at all hours of the day,” she sighs, putting her phone away. 

Donna sits up and takes off her sunglasses, smiling sympathetically. “I know. They’ve started calling me whenever Josh so much as looks at a memo.”

“Anyway,” C.J. says, “A perfect beach day. How about that?” She sits down under the umbrella and takes off her hat. Noticing Donna’s already in her swimsuit, she starts to take off her cover-up. 

And that’s when Donna realizes this was indeed the monumental mistake she thought it was. Because C.J. is wearing what might be the tiniest black bikini Donna’s ever seen in her life. 

She’d thought that title belonged to the little scraps of fabric she’d worn on spring break in 1994. But no. No, it belongs to the strings currently hugging C.J.’s admittedly gorgeous body. Two wired half-moons cup her breasts, tied together with strips of fabric across her back and shoulders, and the lower half of the suit amounts to two triangles tied together. On anyone else, Donna probably said it looked slutty. C.J. looks like she could be sitting on the balcony of a French castle instead of a sweaty beach in Delaware.

C.J.’s glorious, long legs and smooth skin barely covered as she lays out on her towel. C.J.’s eyes glinting the same color as the sky. C.J. giving off hints of orange blossoms and coconutty sunscreen. Donna can’t stop looking at the barely-there cleavage, the long expanse of her stomach. She can think of nothing but C.J. 

Maybe the heat really is getting to her. 

“I’m going to get in,” she says. “Will you help me with my sunscreen?” Oh, no. She shouldn’t have asked that. But of course C.J. says yes, so Donna has to suffer through C.J.’s strong, capable hands rubbing sunscreen into her back. Her fingers find their way under the straps of her top, over her shoulders, down the sides of her waist, and Donna thinks if she has to take any more of this she’s going to snap, she really will. 

She’s been trying to ignore it for a while. She’s been telling herself friendship is all she needs. But with C.J.’s hands on her, Donna can’t deny that she’s been pining for something else. 

But instead of saying anything, Donna finishes applying sunscreen to the rest of her body and practically runs past the family in front of them on her way down to the ocean. Well, she doesn’t, she powerwalks, because she has some sense of decorum, but the point is that she’s knee-deep in cold breakers before C.J. can open her own bottle of sunscreen. Taking a breath, Donna dives headfirst into the waves. She swims out to where she can stand with the water up to her chest, letting the waves bob her up and down for a while and diving under when a swelling wave threatens to wash her back to shore. Donna’s cold, but she thinks that’s better than being overheated. 

After floating peacefully on her back for a while, dodging other tourists where she can, she exits the water and walks back up the beach to where C.J. is reading under the umbrella. C.J.’s lying on her stomach, sun hat back on, even though the umbrella completely shades her.

Donna has a full view of her ass, barely covered by her swimsuit. Donna never thought she’d have any reason to see the ass of the White House Press Secretary, but she counts herself lucky. It’s a nice ass. She lays down on the towel next to her, not bothering to dry off.

“Aren’t you going to get in?” Donna says. “It’s hot enough for it.”

C.J. looks up from her book. “I don’t swim.”

“You went to school in California. You worked in L.A. for years!”

“I went to school at _Berkeley_. And the traffic in L.A. was determined to stop me from going to the beach long enough to swim, ever. Besides, can you imagine me in the water? I’d look ridiculous.”

“C.J.” Donna looks at her with disappointment. “We came all this way, you should at least dip your toes in.”

“Maybe later,” C.J. says. It’s the same way she tells the press it’s a full lid, and Donna knows the conversation is over. She sighs and turns over onto her back, looking at the underside of the red umbrella as she digs her toes into the sand. She contents herself for a few minutes just listening to the sounds of the beach—to C.J. flipping pages, to the seagulls cawing, to kids shouting and running around, to sandcastles crumbling.

Donna gets back in the water eventually. She tries to take C.J. with her, but she again says that she doesn’t swim and returns to her book. Donna wonders what she’s reading that’s so interesting, anyways. She ponders what it could be while she plays in the waves, wishing C.J. was there with her. 

“We should get lunch on the boardwalk,” she announces when she returns to their spot in the sand, wringing out her hair. C.J. looks over her shoulder at Donna. 

“Do they still have that cotton candy stand? I’m sure I went to one when I was here a few years ago.”

Donna shrugs. “I’m sure we can find you one.”

They make their way up to the boardwalk, Donna in her shorts and t-shirt and C.J. in her long cover-up and sun hat. They share a bucket of fries and a stick of cotton candy. Donna looks at C.J.’s bare shoulders in the sun and watches the strands of sugar cling to C.J.’s lips and definitely doesn’t imagine licking them off. After eating the food and making fun of the tourist traps that line the boardwalk, they lean on a railing overlooking the beach. 

“A perfect day,” C.J. murmurs. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Again I say L.A.,” Donna says.

C.J. looks at her, amused. “It’s different. Perfect days are a given there. But here…” she trails off, looking back at the beach, “It’s something special. You appreciate it more when you don’t get it often.”

Donna pointedly doesn’t look at her. “We don’t get to do this very often.”

“Too much of a good thing’ll kill you, Donnatella. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that?”

“My mother was too busy worrying about my father’s heart,” she replies. 

C.J. doesn’t say anything more about it, and they start back towards their umbrella, a red spot in the distance. Donna falls into a nap almost as soon as she lies down next to C.J. The heat has always tired her out, and the cotton candy sitting heavily in her stomach sends her right off to sleep. She wishes she wasn’t using C.J.’s breaths as a guide for her own, but falls asleep to the rhythms of her inhales and exhales anyway.  
-

C.J. shakes Donna awake about an hour after they get back on the beach. It’s a miracle her pager hasn’t beeped since the morning. She half-expects it to go off and wake Donna so she doesn’t have to do it.

“Donna,” she says gently. “I think it’s going to rain. We should probably leave.” Donna blinks blearily, lifting her head from where it was resting face-first on the towel. She flips over onto her back, propping herself on her elbows, and looks where C.J. is pointing. C.J. had noticed the sky darkening 10 minutes ago, but didn’t wake Donna up until she noticed other people leaving the beach. Donna needed all the sleep she could get, she reasoned. 

Gray clouds hover ominously in the distance, moving quickly towards them. Some thunder rumbles and Donna sits up fully, eyes wide open. 

“Shit,” she says. “Shit. Let’s go.” C.J. nods and starts to roll up her towels, putting her book and sunglasses and phone in her bag. Donna takes care of the umbrella. They run across the beach and towards the street where Donna parked, but the downpour starts before they can reach it. 

“Come on!” C.J. calls over her shoulder. Bogged down with the umbrella, Donna’s a few feet behind her. C.J. waits for her to catch up and takes the umbrella. They jog together down the street until they reach Donna’s car, by now totally soaked. Donna fumbles with her keys before they can get in the car and away from the rain. C.J. makes a halfhearted attempt at laying her towel on the seat before she gets in, but that’s soaked too. 

She sits down and takes a breath, relishing the reprieve from the rain. Donna looks at her. Her hair is stringy and limp around her shoulders, and C.J.’s sure hers looks no different. Beads of water dot Donna’s face, and C.J. blinks some out of her eyelashes. They hold each other’s gaze for a minute, breathing hard, before they both burst out laughing.

“I haven’t done something like that since I was 25 years old!” C.J. says in between laughs.

“Ha!” says Donna. “So you did go to the beach!”

“On occasion.” C.J. keeps laughing—a true, joyful laugh from deep in her chest, mixing with Donna’s high-pitched giggles. She can feel her heart beating rapidly from their sprint. The rain patters on the roof, surrounding them in a cocoon of steady droplets and laughter.

Their laughter has barely stopped when Donna murmurs, “C.J.”

She holds C.J.’s gaze, one pair of blue eyes on another, and Donna leans forward a bit and C.J. does too and Donna’s kissing her, mouth open and wanting, bringing her hand up to rest on C.J.’s cheek, and C.J.’s got one hand on the gear shift and the other coming up to Donna’s neck and she feels like she just got hit by some of the lightning that’s outside. C.J. closes her eyes and Donna tastes like salt and cotton candy and rainwater and they keep kissing until C.J. needs some air so she pulls away. She looks into Donna’s eyes and her first thought is wondering why she didn’t think of this before. Her second thought is that she’s not even gay, she’s always liked men. Her third thought is that she doesn’t care, she just wants to keep her hand in Donna’s wet hair and kiss her lips, kiss her neck, kiss under her t-shirt and down to her shorts.

Donna moves to kiss her again, and C.J.’s fourth thought is that this absolutely has to stop, right now. 

She lets her lips meet Donna’s one more time, but pulls away a tick too soon. Her hand drops from Donna’s hair to her shoulder. 

“Donna…” she trails off.

“I’ve really gone and fucked it all up now, haven’t I?” Donna says. She looks awkwardly away from C.J. and searches for her keys, moving to start the car, but C.J. grabs her wrist as she tries to put the keys in the ignition. 

“Donna. Look at me.” Donna does. 

“You understand why I can’t, right?” C.J. says. “I—”

“I know, C.J. It was dumb of me—can we just not talk about it?” Donna looks away again and pulls her hand away from C.J.’s.

“Donna, I didn’t say I didn’t _want_ to.” And God, does C.J. want to. She looks at Donna’s pink lips, thinks of how this is the easiest friendship she’s ever had. But she works in the White House, she goes on television every day, and likes Donna a lot but she really can’t. “But you know that I can’t.”

Donna looks at her sadly. “I know,” she says. “It was stupid.” She turns the keys and the car rumbles to life. 

C.J. turns Donna’s face to hers and kisses her slowly, gently, before she can shift gears. Donna melts into it, taking every last bit of C.J. like she knows she’ll never taste her again. 

“I just want you to know that it’s not your fault,” C.J. says when they pull apart. 

Donna smiles at her sadly. “It’s okay, C.J. I get it. We don’t have to talk about it.” 

The drive home is awkward. C.J. mostly just pretends to sleep. Donna drops her off at her house and C.J. waves goodbye as she’s halfway through the door. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asks. _Are we okay?_ is the question that lies beneath.

Donna grins at her. “You know it.” C.J. exhales a sigh of relief and runs into her house. They’re okay. 

They’re okay throughout the week. Things are normal. They get coffee and carpool and chitchat and it’s surprisingly fine but C.J. still feels odd about the whole thing. They just pretend they’re the same as they’ve always been—like the whole beach day was a dream.

And then, after the Correspondents’ Dinner, they’re locked together in C.J.’s office for the foreseeable future. And Donna thinks C.J.’s supposed to be changing for a camping trip with Ben, which is troublesome. Because C.J. told Ben they should stop seeing each other the day after she and Donna kissed in Delaware and she realized that maybe Ben wasn’t giving her exactly what she wanted. So C.J.’s not going camping, but Donna needs to prep for Gaza, and C.J. has nothing to do but sit in her gown and try not to think about how perfect Donna’s dress looks on her. 

She might be in love with Donna, now that she thinks about it. C.J. has only ever been in love once, with a boyfriend that lasted a few years but couldn’t handle it when she started working in the White House. It felt the same as this. C.J. wanted to be with him all the time, couldn’t stand being away from him, made excuses for him and kissed him in the rain. 

Maybe she loves Donna and maybe she doesn’t, but she can’t deny that something is happening here that she can no longer ignore. She has to tell her.

Donna’s sitting in C.J.’s desk chair, briefing binder for Gaza open. C.J. closes the blinds. 

“Want me to keep watch?” Donna says, looking up.

C.J. realizes Donna still thinks she’s on her way to a campground. “No, that’s fine. I’m not going.”

Donna tilts her head and looks quizzically at C.J. “Why not?”

“Ben and I broke up,” C.J. says shortly.

“Oh,” Donna says, bringing a hand to cover her mouth. “Oh. Not because of…”

“Because of a lot of things,” C.J. says. “It just wasn’t working.” She sits in the chair across from her desk, the one usually reserved for visitors. 

“Oh,” Donna says again. “I’m sorry. He’s cute.”

“Yeah.” C.J. smiles tightly. Donna goes back to her briefing binder. 

“So Josh is sending you to Gaza?” she says after a few awkward minutes of silence.

Donna hums affirmatively. She doesn’t look up. 

“About time you got to do something fun around here,” C.J. says. 

Donna nods. She flips a page, then another. Finally, after the third page flip, she looks up. 

“So we’re not going to talk about this?” she says.

“Talk about what?”

“Sunday. The beach. Ben.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t. But I think you want to.”

C.J. shakes her head. “What makes you think that?” She does want to talk about it, but she has no clue where to start.

Donna stands up and walks around the desk. Her soft pink dress swishes around her legs. C.J. can see a sliver of cleavage revealed by the cowl-neck falling a few inches beneath Donna’s collarbone and thinks she’s got to ask Donna where she shops because it’s one of the most beautiful dresses she’s ever seen. 

Or maybe it’s just Donna. She extends a hand to C.J. when she reaches her chair and C.J. doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone as beautiful as Donnatella Moss all dressed up for a party, all slender fingers and legs and blonde strands falling loose from her updo. 

“Dance with me?” she asks. C.J. stands up, taking Donna’s hand.

“Only if I can lead.” Donna nods and they assume their positions. One of C.J.’s hands rests on Donna’s waist, the other cups Donna’s hand. There’s no music, but they waltz arrhythmically in the small space of C.J.’s office anyway. 

“So why’d you really break up with Ben?” Donna asks.

C.J. holds eye contact. “I told you. It wasn’t working.”

They take a few more steps. 

“It had nothing to do with me?” C.J. doesn’t like where this is going.

“It may have had a little to do with you,” she assents.

-

It may have had a little to do with her. Christ. Donna can feel her hopes rising already and desperately tries to push them down. She shouldn’t have started this conversation. But she couldn’t help herself. She’s been putting on this cold act towards C.J. all night, but her hopes started rising as soon as she heard that she and Ben had broken up.

“Oh?” she says, stifling a smile. “Elaborate.”

C.J. stops dancing. She moves her hand so that both of them are now resting on Donna’s waist, and Donna responds by putting both of hers on C.J.’s shoulders so that they look like teenagers at prom.

“You know how I said I can’t? Do this?”

Donna nods. _Don’t get your hopes up, Donnatella,_ she tells herself. _Too much of a good thing will ruin you, remember?_

But then C.J. is leaning down a bit, closing the short distance between them so she can kiss Donna’s lips. Donna closes her eyes and kisses back. She feels like she’s floating, she feels like she’s dreaming, she feels like she’s never letting C.J. Cregg go.

But C.J. pulls away after a few seconds. “I think I was wrong. I think I can.”

“Are you sure?” Donna says, leaning back. “Like, really sure?”

“You’re something else, Donna. Some opportunity that only comes along once in a lifetime. And I’m not known to waste opportunities.”

And Donna smiles. She pulls C.J. down to her and buries her fingers in her hair and kisses her like tomorrow won’t come and the sun won’t rise on her plane to Gaza. She smells orange blossoms and light, fresh air filling the space around her, blocking everything out except C.J., C.J., C.J. 

_There’s a promise here,_ Donna thinks as she sucks at a spot on C.J.’s neck. It’s a promise of endless nights together, of kisses behind closed doors and coffee behind open ones. But mostly, it’s a promise of love. Platonic love, romantic love, sexual love, whatever kind of love suits you. Donna feels all of it. 

A nice thought, that. A promise of love. And Donna intends to make good on it for as long as she can.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and kudos if you enjoyed, thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr @slightlyraspberry and twitter @samseabxrn.
> 
> Ending is a bit sappy and rushed but what can u do. I didn't ship this for most of the series and to some extent still prefer josh/donna but this fic came to me and I couldn't. Not write it. After writing this fic tho I like this pairing a LOT and might write the Gaza events in this universe bc i think it would be inch resting!
> 
> Anyway yes I did change Donna's dress in No Exit bc the one they put her in was Not Cute. Here are links for what I kinda based the perfume, swimsuit, and dress on respectively:
> 
> https://shop.goop.com/shop/products/behnaz-pure-neroli?country=USA
> 
> https://www.target.com/p/juniors-shirred-underwire-bikini-top-xhilaration-black/-/A-78873779?preselect=78791773#lnk=sametab
> 
> https://www.nastygal.com/right-bride-your-side-cowl-maxi-dress/AGG53652-374-18.html?istBid=t&istCompanyId=c0be3c48-e653-4c39-b0ef-f608859d9f17&istFeedId=6391ec2f-cb91-4734-b4e8-dc6e630eb98c&istItemId=irqqppttq`


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